No Rest For The Wicked
by ThomasChessandBirch
Summary: My name is Lyra. I'm wearing my favourite jeans and my favourite t-shirt, because today I am going to see my Father, Loki, the God of Mischief and Lies. (two days post-avengers)
1. Chapter 1

**I own nothing but the plot**

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"Well, well, don't you look nice."

I'm wearing a God Save the Queen t-shirt that my foster mum gave me and some black skinny jeans because they make me feel pretty and powerful and all around not freakish.

He's lying on a thin mattress, inside a cage that hangs in the sky. His voice is as smooth as ever.

"Father." I say, raising an eyebrow, "I see they managed to lock you up nice and tight, so tell me, what did you do this time?"

He looks at me with green eyes and I look back at him with blue.

"Come to mock me have you?"

"Why father dear, I wouldn't dare."

He looks away, his gaze focusing on the ceiling of the glass cage they've stuck him in.

"Your mother misses you." Loki says to me, and I raise my other eyebrow so it can join the first.

Let me say one thing before you make your judgements, I know my father, I know that everything he says is for a reason, and right now he wants me to feel guilty I left, he wants me to give in and leave in a trail of tears so I won't bother him anymore.

It was a cheap shot, we both know this, just like we both know I long since shut out the feelings that come with thinking about home.

"She's not my mother." I say, because I can't think of anything else.

"And he wasn't your father, but you still mourned."

The bastard sounds amused; he said that on pursue, to get a rise out of me, to get me to smash the glass because he can't.

Suddenly I want to hit him.

"How's uncle Thor." I say, because I can't get though the glass with the fancy ruins spray painted on the side and Thor's always been his weak spot.

Loki's face goes blank and I smile.

"He's not your uncle." He says, mocking my earlier words and I flinch.

It hits me that something's happened and it's messed him up worse then I thought.

Only I can't bring myself to care.

Like father like daughter.

"Oh? So he gets to be your brother but not my uncle, I don't think that's how it works father dear, or did you finally do something about that sexual tension that stands between you and bend old uncle Thor over a table. Should I be calling him daddy now instead?"

My father's fist clenches, his face tightens and it's like I can smell the anger and hatred and resentment he holds for perfect uncle Thor.

"I'm surprised you even bothered to show your face, how is Midgard treating you Lyra dear? You've been here what, ninety years, that's a life time for these creatures, tell me, how many have you seen die while you stayed the same?"

_too many_, I think before I can stop myself.

I look down at my shoes, scuffed up Converse that I found in an English charity shop for five pounds.

I bend down and sit on the cold steel floor, leaning my head against the metal rail that runs round the cage and hang my feet over the edge.

The wind touches them and the blackness of a shadow shields them from view.

"They've got good music." I shrug, not looking at him "books too, I mean, they've had a few blunders here and there, but I like it, I like this place."

"You've grown soft, I remember when you where barely knee height, declaring war on everything that dared anger you, you would have eaten this place for breakfast,"

"And you've grown hard, is it nice, hiding behind all that ice?"

"They're coming." He says, his voice too light.

He doesn't say who are coming, who are already here, but I can guess; The Avengers, the guards, the agents, everyone, coming to kill me, find out how I got onto the base.

It was shockingly easy by the way, they bothered to ward Loki's cage and that made it even easier to find, all I needed to do was look for the darkness.

"You changed the subject" I point out, "and anyway, I just wanted to see you."

Loki laughs a liar's laugh.

"You never just 'come and see me', surely you don't want to go back to Asgard, they'd no more welcome you then they would me. You ran remember, a sign of a true coward if ever I saw one."

"My, my," I say in a flat voice, looking up at him, at his blank face and ever so slightly crazy eyes. "They really did fuck you up, I mean, here I am, you're only child, and all you do is question. It hurts, it hurts right here." I thump my chest, even though he's not looking.

Someone starts banging on the door, and the noise echo's around my head. I've sealed it shut as best I can, but I don't know how long it'll hold against the likes of Captain America.

Loki snorts, looking up to give me another once over. "My dear Lyra, what makes you think I'm not pleased to see you? Your hair is shorter then the last time we met, are you by any chance thinking about trying to grow it out? Because I'm not so sure that that is a good look for you."

I roll my eyes, fingering my hair; it's black and short, hanging just below my ears in damp curls from a shower earlier in the day.

"The spells slipping you know." Loki says, his voice sounding amused once again.

"I'm meant to be in school, I mean, right now I'm locked the bathroom with a lit cigarette, I could have just left it, I could have just thought, what the hell, dad doesn't need to see me and I don't need to see him, but no, I came."

"And I'm very glad for it." He drawls, sounding not every glad at all.

"I just want to know if I should be making preparations is all." I mutter, looking at my hands, dreaming of being in the school bathroom, dreaming of being anywhere but here.

"They're not going to kill me, the little misguided prince who lost his way. I will be fine."

"They tied you to a rock and dripped snake venom in your eye, and you didn't even _do _anything then, just lied. I'm not putting it past them to kill you in some horrific way, and if they do, I'd at least like to know before it happens. so I'm not waiting about wondering what the hell has happened to you."

I end up shouting, my voice becoming louder and louder the further I got though my speech, and worst of all, I end up _caring_.

This was why I didn't want to come; weakness is never your friend, especially not in front of a god.

I look down at my shaking hands and clench them, feel the prick of tears gathering at the corner of my eyes.

I hate it all.

I hate him.

"I'm not going to die." His voice his certain and though his voice holds no warmth. I know he is trying to do something to stop me breaking down in front of him.

I know he is trying. So I stand up and wipe my cheeks, looking at him dead in the eye.

"Good bye father." I say, because I can't think of anything else to say.

He nods his head and I blink away, letting go of the spell on the door and breathe in the smell of a public school bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

**I own nothing.**

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I'm walking along a walk, one converse clad foot after another.

"Where do you think they're keeping him?" The girl walking next to me asks, it's all anyone can talk about.

"Dunno," I shrug, "somewhere underground properly, so that the only way to escape is to dig upwards, you know, with a spoon or something."

I know this is a lie, I know that they're holding so high up in the sky that even the birds can't reach him.

"Yeah, I guess." She says uncertainly, looking up at me with big drown bambi eyes.

"Why are we talking about this Charlotte?" I sigh, "What did you get on that math test?"

"Because, Lyra," she says my name like I'm the dumbest person in the world, "there's nothing else to talk about, an alien from space invaded New-York and then Thor and Captain America and Iron-Man did an ultimate team up and saved us all."

She forgot the other three, the assassin, the scientist and the archer, that helped, but I don't say anything, only feel the slightest bit of smugness that I know something she doesn't.

"How do you know it was Thor? I mean, just because of the news-"

"Not _just_ the news, the internet as well, right now everyone important agrees it was Thor, ABC news, Fox news, Tumbler."

I shrug again, looking up at the sky.

"I think it's going to rain." I comment, pointing to the dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

"It always rains." Charlotte deadpans, following my gaze across the park.

I roll my eyes and jump off of the wall and on to the grass, grimacing as my shoes sink into the mud.

"Yeah," I say back to Charlotte, as we turn left and head towards the small alley that leads to the top of our street, "but rain means more mud, and mud means ruined shoes and my Converse are barely holding on as it is."

"Buy some new shows."

I snort, and walk ahead, "I've had these shoes longer then you've been alive Charlotte, I've not getting rid of them, they're part of my soul."

"I'm older then you Lyra, by like five months."

We come to my house and I swing round and wave goodbye to Charlotte, giving her a toothy grin.

It's fake, but I've been faking for the last ninety or so years, faking I'm human, faking young and hopeless and scared.

They all think I'm thirteen.

When I reach the front door I stick my hand in my pocket and fish out the key, the lock sticks and the door creaks louder then the wind but I push it open with a bang and step into the warmth of the house.

The door opens into a living room, with a grey sofa and a dirty cream carpet that screams kids. I dump my bag on the floor by the stone cold radiator.

The cat clock on the mismatched purple wall strikes four and I sigh.

Today has been a big day.

I clench my fist around the key and think back to Loki.

It isn't fair.

They'll kill him this time, and maybe he's right, maybe I have gone soft, maybe I've become nothing more then a kitten trying to be a big cat, but I don't want him to die, I don't want to be an orphan.

Something whispers in the bad of my mind that he did _kill _thousands, caused millions of pounds of property that America will never properly recover from.

The thought makes me cold.

I am my father's daughter, and even though I only hold a fraction of the power he holds, I still have it, and I'm still staying.

I ran away from Asgard you know, after the man claiming to be my father died in battle.

It was after that that Loki came forwards, I'd always known him, the man hiding in the shadows, teaching me magic, but when I found out who he really was, well, I couldn't take it anymore.

There are more ways to travel to different realms then most know.

I knew then all, or at least I knew someone who knew them all.

I don't want to go back.

I want to stay.

It was a mistake going to see him, and even the familiar comfort of my favourite t-shirt and my favourite jeans can't fix it.

The familiar comfort of home.

I should run.

I need to run.

Pack a bag and leave.

Take my books and my clothes and let everyone forget about me, let time sallow me whole once again.

It scared me, how easy it is, how easily the thought came to me.

Am I that used to it? That when the first cracks start to show I leave.

Yes, I decide, I am.

Now there's only one real thought left, standing ahead of everything else, glaring at me with green eyes.

Is it worth it, is whatever I am about to decide with it?

Even now I don't want to face the decision, I want to run away and hide in the safety of my mind.

I want a distraction.

I can hear a car coming up the drive way.

Thank the Gods.

I'm not the only one that lives in this house, there's Beth, the foster mom, little Richard, the youngest at four and Claire, the cute one, at seven.

They come in like I did, with a bang and a loud clatter of noise. Clair is talking about an after school soccer match, and Richard is leaning into Beth's leg with her thumb in his mouth.

As soon as Beth sees me standing in the middle of the living room she frowns.

"Why are you wearing my shirt?" is the first time out of her mouth.

"You gave me it." I say back, raising an eyebrow and moving to sit on the sofa.

"I let you borrow it for school picture day; in no way did I say you could keep it."

"Yes you did, I mean, I never gave it back and you never asked for it back." I deflect, Beth knows that I only where the shirt when I'm nervous.

I hate that she knows me so well, even though she knows nothing but lies about me.

Claire comes and sits on the sofa next to me, her blonde hair pulled in a high pony tail and her blue eyes wide.

"Lyra," so whispers, and makes a complicated hand jester that means she wants to talk to me alone.

I roll my eyes. "What Claire" I whisper back.

"I WON" She screams in my ear.

I look towards Beth who nods, and plaster a smile on my face.

"Well done!" I cry and watch her eyes light up.

That's the point where it hits me; a tonne of bricks falls on my heart.

They saw me.

I can't stay here.

I can't let them find me.

I can't let them find my makeshift sort of family.

Only I've always been a coward, and too leave who be a brave thing, a noble thing, and I'm not sure I can do it.

I'm not sure I'm ready to live on my own again, to be on my own again.

I'll stay for the night, stay in my warm bed.

And with that it becomes easy, to fall into old patterns.

I lay the table for dinner.

I eat.

I go too sleep.

I go to School.

I don't leave, because staying is easy, and leaving is hard.

On the four day of nearly leaving the doorbell rings.

The woman is small compared to the man; she has curly red hair short just above her shoulder. The man has sandy blond hair and looking at me cold and unnerving.

I recognise them both straight away.

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